Love is a Bitch.

Dementedly challenged was his heart. Tear streaked was his face. Blood beaten down and filling slowly with heart break he clings to the shattered pieces of his once flush dignity. The trump card that was love had taught him he was over and done with by the likes of happiness. What was this pointless journey into lost romances? He never found his morals intact. Instead they are like dusty records left in the basement: warped and broken. His trust had been maimed; a twisting, writhing path quite like the winding trail of crimson left in the wake of a hooked fish. Oxygen has been cut off too long. He is a vegetable. And so he clutches that which he has already lost. Like a phantom limb. Like the tooth fairy's mission to take what was once your smile. A row of teeth he'll come to replace, he tells himself. Poor poor hope. Poor little wasted soul turned strange. He was not one to leave behind a wall erected around his heart. But he had done it for one fleeting moment. And now his inner yearnings seem more like maze than moat. Castle burning and castle crumbling, he'll treat this memory like a medieval form of torture. The iron maiden was his mistress. The rack keeps pulling the bindings ever more taut. His limbs seem useless yet bring pain. The rending of arm and leg, the tending of phantom and ghost, the sending of loss turned hope. This is a war that doesn't require much thought aside from one's last words. "Only those that long to be true can ever lose sight." With the saying of these words, he was dead on arrival. The tender gesture that is a warm hand holding another is only that: Nothing more than an apparition's caress. He had lost her so long ago yet the the memories persist. He is in denial. He is in freefall. He is inconsolable. Let those who keep their hearts intact never stray into this man's world. For this world is dark and dire. For this world is one of ice. This world is not for the happy.

You are being watched.

Graciousness can't even begin to describe Creeping Tom's ecstatic demeanor post-interception of personal moment. He is king of all that should not be seen; in the community of various voyeurs he is reigning upon all that is so stupid its creepy. He is Creeping Tom, they say. His eyes glitter like six year old jumpsuits lost in garbage pit. His stomach lining spits acid with gilded delight; those poor enough to get lost in the haze of his belch realize their lives were never worth living. A tube of Rolo's clutched in his hand, Creeping Tom leans closer, drool intact. He stares out into sexualized precious creation and sneers at all that is so easy it's visible. He's gone for the duration: that time period known as a lifespan. Chemicals taken to the dome in anticipation, he is not one to lose sight of what is pristine. Like crystalz of all pureness, every stolen sight is of his mental collection: a man picking his nose unawares, two teenage lovers sneaking a kiss with cigarettes clutched in fists, an obese man slipping his hand down his pants with a wry grin on his face. They all hold sway in the tangled mind he loses each day. Oh those that have no idea! Oh those who keep themselves from those who seek them! All in vain! All for naught! Keep yourselves futile says Creeping Tom. He will find you. His daily shift at the strip mall down Rt. 45 has been a shifty one alright. He's only received a sliver of dark satisfaction thus far. He feels his grip upon his sexual fears slipping as though lubed with grease of bacon. Nimble fingers play upon the web of his midnight thoughts without suppression; within the creaking shelter of his brain there is hope for relief. All that brings such a thing is a fleeting moment of sick embellishment. He's a yesman for chinks in the armor of the public. His eyes stab holes in the perceived anonymity of the faceless existence. Though his day is as of yet to be fulfilled, his twiddling fingers give him reason to believe there is something about to reveal itself. Something that doesn't want to be seen. Popping another Rolo for sweetness, his eyes scan the parking lot for a real time fissure in the world of saving face.

A Child of Linger On

I am a child of linger on, I peer through the window gone. Running and running these thoughts won't leave the gloom of his mind. Treatment for isolation breeds freedom of intent and he seems to loll his head back in a world of loss. Dropped from the human registry, those who had known him call him deceased. Drop out high school passions were all that he kept alive. His next of kin was a washed out big brother who left whenever the heat comes up. His next pint of gin helps wash out the longing that leaves when the sun comes up. I'm doing fine, his head suggests. He used to stroll down prepubescent hallways dripping of gym class sweat swinging hard for the burnout challenge. Now he digs deep and buries dead lighters in the sand. Lit by a single childhood dream, his joy was kept chained, whipped, beaten down for all age shows that go on til the last teenager overdoses. Yes, he relishes in the sight of youth squandered. This is the only way to gauge his relativity. He truly is peering through the window gone. For he hasn't seen the light of day in at least fourteen true months. He waits for a summer slight crescent to peak and pours another glass. It's half empty before it even reaches his lips. A guidance counselor's nightmare, he haphazardly slips off his chair and hits the floor hard. Twenty minutes later the sun peaks over the horizon like the dead eye of a caribou lost in wasteland of brush and wreckage.

Under tha DOME!

His is a life of solitude and horror. He can't talk too fast. He isn't much of a looker. He often feels inadequate size wise. The baggage strapped to his brain tows heavily upon his ambitions and aspirations. And to top if all off, his heaving breast of a mother had named him Pookie in a fit of stupid rage. Huffing spray paint isn't much of a problem as he stumbles into a Wal-Mart with visions. Being knee deep in skin mags had gotten him no where and it was time to "move on." He had heard he would be able to find a "Stephen King novel" at this establishment: he was looking to be enlightened. Long ago, before his skin condition, he had been told of literary adventures sure to loosen him up, idiot savant like. He wasn't maladjusted. He just wished he could spout uselessness like all of his acquaintances at the eCoffeeShop. This all to further himself from the inevitable question: Why did he have to fall in love with something that had never noticed him? What was to be gained of longing for a dead affection stripped bare forever ago? Wandering amongst the romances, the westerns, the mysteries, the horrors, he couldn't pin down where he was heading; towards or away from a cliff. Alee of winds within his own mind he longs to bare the storm and weather his opinion with the hatred of others. Just to burn at the stake seems akin to dreams come true. He wants to proclaim he is king of book club international with tomatoes flying. He wants to hook up with a "hot chick with sweet jugz" online. He'll show them all that he can discern between no and no way and maybe if you dont take off your pants. He has learned to ask a sexual broad to "just put the tip in" to get his foot in the door. He can claim he reads books; though he has only gazed at the directions on a box of Stouffer's Mac 'N Cheez while huffing silver spray paint, he feels that his now frazzled attention span can bridge the gap. Thus, his grip lands upon a thick volume. His mind wanders...Under THA DOME?! Wow. This is soundin' zoned. Keep on keepin' on, his step bro used to say as he slapped an aerosol can into his hand. "Here, read 'dis, read so hard you can't see straight." It was a rite of passage in his house and now he was longing for more. "Pookie," his step-BRO would say, "you've gotta move onto tha heavier sorta readin, like airplane glue 'n gasoline." But Pookie wouldn't have it. He needed the love of others; especially from those who had never laid eyes upon him. And the unanswerable void of his mind has decided how to do this: get educated all up in his dome. He stops listening to his stomach turn the sandwich he ate into poop just long enough to purchase a "Stephen King book."